Leaving London
by SniperCT
Summary: The Cordyceps Pandemic has been raging for years. London's Quarantine Zones are on their last legs and are no longer safe. Lara and Sam are grizzled and hardened by surviving both Yamatai and a post-infection world. When the walls come down it's time to leave London.
1. Abandoned

Lara's sitting near the window, keeping watch. She's silhouetted by the predawn light, just a shadow tense in repose. I sit up and watch her. "Lara, Sweetie. Get some rest."

She looks at me, then shakes her head, her hair falling in loose strands down her back. Sighing, I get up and walk over to her. I kiss her shoulder, and the back of her neck, then sit down and hug her from behind. I find all my favorite places to touch her. Her scars, her muscles, a stretch of skin that had been burned.

She's got scars. A lot of them. I spend hours sometimes just touching them. There are the old ones. The puncture wounds and cuts and slashes from Yamatai a lifetime ago. There are the newer ones. Cuts on her hips, a gash across her shoulder blade, and worse.

I think I have an effect on her, because she leans back against me, her body sagging. It's been like this for...well forever. She doesn't sleep well. If she's in the mood I just wear her out, but lately she's just been so morose. I get it, this isn't the life either of us wanted. I get it, she doesn't feel whole.

The epidemic had been raging for months when she got bit. I panicked. She didn't. She looked at me, looked at how I was freaking out and then she just...fucking hacked her right arm off and cauterized the wound with a blowtorch. But that wasn't even the end of it, no. It was 'Sam, I need you to tie me down, I need you to end it if I start to turn.' I mean the alternative was her shooting herself in the head but...I don't think I could have done it. If she'd turned. Or if I had done it, I would have ended myself right after.

After everything we've been through I can't do it without her. It took me weeks to forgive her for putting me into that position but I got over it. I didn't really have a choice, without her I'd be dead. Without her I'd _want_ to be dead. I wonder sometimes if she blames me for needing her that much.

That was years ago. She's not the only one that's battlescarred. She taught me to fight and I earned my fair share of hurts. It just gets harder every day. And it looks like it's only going to get worse.

More and more infected have been getting into the Quarantine Zone lately. It isn't safe anymore, but try to tell that to the authorities. We have some weapons, not supposed to, but we do. I don't know how much longer we'll stay in the QZ. She's been making rumblings about finding another place. Like there's anywhere else in London that isn't swarming with infected.

She drifts off in my arms finally. I'll get stiff but if Lara gets some rest it's worth it. I manage to fall asleep too, until alarms startle us both awake. Alarms that we never, ever wanted to hear. This isn't one or two infected. Over the din we can hear them.

"Where's the military?"

Lara's voice is grim. "They've abandoned us."

Where do you go when there's no where safe? The city is one big deathtrap. The Thames started to flood years ago, and with no one to repair the barriers whole sections of London can't be traversed. Trying to get into the country is almost as hard. We'd still have to cross miles and miles of abandoned buildings and cars, and they're crawling with infected. London had eight million people before the outbreak. Five years later the living population is under a million, spread through six QZs. There'd been seven until recently. Now with ours overrun there are five. Maybe less. Maybe the infected figured out how to get in and dine on us. I don't know, but part of me wonders how much longer before we go extinct.

There was a man I'd talked to a lot in the QZ. Old and grizzled, missing half his teeth, his left eye and two fingers on his left hand. He kind of reminded me of a dark-skinned Grim in a lot of ways. He told me once that he thought the planet worked in cycles. Humans came along like some kind of cleansing machine, but we got out of control. So now we're being cleansed instead. Can't really argue with him. Nature is already starting to reclaim the cities. In a few hundred years there are going to be places swallowed up completely and forgotten, like all those old tombs and temples that Lara had wanted to visit.

Lara finds an old boat. The engine doesn't work, but we're able to push it away from shore and anchor it in the river, tethered to shore. We huddle there, while we listen to the Quarantine Zone die. Gunshots and screaming, the occasional explosion. It's the screaming that gets to me. All those people, screaming. All those infected, screaming. This constant sound that I can't escape no matter how many things I pile onto my head.

On the third day, I catch Lara crying. It's a huge relief to know I'm not the only one affected. That she's still human enough to feel, that we haven't gotten _used_ to this. It doesn't last too long before she turns her emotions into something productive. She pries up the engine and starts to look through it.

"I thought you said it was shot."

"I did," She says, her voice hollow from her head being inside it. "But I'm looking again."

It takes her several hours of inspection, cleaning and working, but she finally figures something out. She collapses on the floor next to me, covered in oil and grease. "We need parts. I know where we can get some. You're not going to like it."

She doesn't even need to tell me where. I already know it involves going into the QZ or the city or some place swarming with infected and spores. "Fuck that. Fuck that! We'll row!"

"Sam, we need power. Even with a working engine trying to go anywhere is going to be dicey, but we can't stay here. We'll _starve_." Lara puts a dirty hand on my shoulder, and I lean into it. "We need those parts, we need food and water, and some more ammunition would be welcome."

"Lets try not to blow up any ships this time," I tell her, but I can't find any humor. Alex was lucky. I never thought I'd say that, but Alex was so, so lucky. I help Lara with the tether, and when we're close enough to the shore we hop onto land.

Lara checks her rifle while I kick the boat away from shore and hide the tether. I'm just not as good a shot. She's tried endlessly to teach me, but it's better to just give me something with a spray and let me point in the general direction of what I'm trying to hit, so I run around with a sawed-off shotgun. Old me, before the outbreak, would have thought I looked so hot with it and my ratty leather jacket. Post-apocalyptic chic.

New me still thinks I'm hot.

She has a fake arm. It's really just an old prosthetic we'd looted, that she's reinforced with some metal plating and some grooves. It lets her have a rest for her rifle so she could steady her aim. It's pretty heavy, too. It's missing the hand entirely. I forget where we lost it but we'd tried jerry-rigging something to let her hold a bow and draw the string with her left hand. It failed miserably, but I'm always trying to think of ideas to help her. I'm thinking taping a machete to it.

The screaming is farther away. There's less of it now from the people, and it makes it easier to hear the clicking. We both freeze.

One..two...three…I suddenly can't hear anything over the pounding of my heart in my chest. Lara's head is tilted, and I hold my breath. She's always had this amazing ability to pick out the least visible signs and least audible sounds. She points at me, then signs. 'Move, now.'

There's six of them now, and Lara guides me past them with her hand signs. I crouch, hiding and trying to not hyperventilate while I wait for her to sneak past the clickers too. I keep getting visions of them ripping her apart and when she appears at my side I nearly jump out of my skin. She slaps her hand over my mouth before I can make a sound and we remain silent and unmoving for several minutes. I make a note to send a prayer to Roth and Grim for teaching her that stuff.

"Ready?" She whispers.

"No. But lets get going anyway." I lean over and pick up a brick. Hey, you never know when it'll come in handy.


	2. Nowhere is Safe

Clickers. I hate those fuckers. How the hell a mushroom evolved echo location I'll never know, but they scare the crap out of me. Is the person still in there? Or are they gone for good? I think still being in there, unable to control yourself would be worse.

We have our parts, and some fuel too. I even managed to find some rations. We try not to be greedy. There is only so much we can carry and being greedy gets people killed. We've both learned that lesson the hard way and it's not an experience I want to relive.

It really feels like they've multiplied since we slipped past them earlier. It's dark now, advantage them. Flashlights won't attract anything so it's not as bad as it could be but there are always blind spots.

I motion Lara over and whisper. "Give me your right arm."

She looks at me quizzically, but detaches it and hands it over. I work as quickly and as quietly as I can, but when hand it back to her I've fixed a hatchet to the end. It'll last a couple of hits but not forever. But usually a couple of hits is all we need to escape. I show her how to detach it.

Lara nods in approval, and we start to move. There's so many of them. And if the screaming from earlier is any indication there's going to be a lot more infected over the next few days. I don't think we've moved more than fifteen feet before my boots crunch on glass.

It feels like slow motion. A clicker zones in on Lara, and she moves from a crouching position to a standing one, her hatchet arm cutting in an upward arc and nearly cutting the clicker in half. It lodges in a second one and she rips her arm free, dancing backwards out of the reach of a third. I hit it with a brick and start running as the crack of Lara's rifle fills the air. Two shots, then three. I jump for a window and something yanks me back. I kick at it. There's another crack and it lets go. I glance behind me to see Lara running.

Adrenaline fuels me as I pull myself through the window. Lara throws our bag of supplies to me, then I lean in to help her out. She doesn't look hurt and I'm relieved. She puts her fingers to her lips after picking up her pack, and I follow her along the edge of the building and towards one of the high walls that ran around the QZ. Infected are swarming in the direction of her gunshots and I'm so very okay with the idea of high ground right now.

Something grabs my ankle again and I turn, pointing my gun. It's a man, clearly bitten, but he hasn't turned yet. I recognize him. His eye long gone, only three fingers on one hand. We used to talk a lot. I guess nature finally cleansed him.

"Sam!" Lara's voice hisses in my ear.

I look at her, then at our friend. "Lara, it's.."

"I know." She kneels next to him. His eyes are already starting to glaze over, but I can tell he recognizes us. Lara sighs, then slits his throat in a single, even line. "Make it this long only to get bitten in the only place we're supposed to be safe."

I close the man's eyes, then lean on Lara as I stand. I don't know where we're going to go, but I don't want to see London ever again.

From our current location, it's not going to be easy or quick to make it back where we'd left that boat. I'm praying someone else hasn't found it and set it adrift, because we're going to be _so_ screwed without it.

I want to know what Lara's plan is, what we're going to do once we've left London. But I can't ask, not until we're safe. I'm achey and sore and we're not even half way there. It took us two hours to find the parts, but it's been nearly three times that long just to get back already. It's a risk, but we cut through a building.

A low groaning comes from around a corner, and we both freeze. First one stalker, than another shuffles past. We press against the wall. I think I might pee my pants a little. I count six, and a clicker. They stop. They're just _hanging out_ right there. One is so close I could touch it. I'm positive that they can hear the pounding of my heart in my chest. The sound of sweat hitting the floor. I spare a glance at Lara. She's very slowly digging through a pocket. Even more slowly, she lifts her hand into my line of site and points towards the door. I hold my breath.

A coin (at least I think it's a coin) sails through the air, bounces off a wall and rolls down the hallway away from us. The infected chase after it and we're running. The water is in sight, the boat still anchored in the distance. Lara starts hauling it in and I turn, blowing the head off of a stalker and nearly sending myself flailing into the water.

"Lara! Hurry!"

There's another, it's arms swinging towards me and I put buckshot into his chest. Another comes from behind it and slams into me. I kick at it and roll away. There's the sound of a skull being crushed as Lara hits it with a rock. I pick myself up and shoot anything that moves and isn't Lara.

"Sam!" Lara pulls me into the water and almost flings me onto the boat. She pushes off of the shore as another infected leaps at us. I fire my last shotgun shell. Finally we're safe. Finally. Maybe we can catch a break, maybe we can...

Lara is looking at me, the color draining from her face. I press my hand against my leg. Warm blood flows around my fingers. Sinking to the deck I wrap my arms around myself. The world is spinning. I want to throw up.

"I'm _so_ sorry."

Lara looks like she's breaking as I say those words. Lara, always the strong one, the one who's held us together in the years since Yamatai and the outbreak. Her fingers press lightly against the wound on my hip. The bite. Too high up for her to amputate. I'm so sorry Lara. I'm so sorry I'm going to leave you alone.

She collapses onto the deck next to me, and I lean my head on her shoulder. It's shaking, but she's not crying. She'll save that for later. She'll save everything for later. I know her, I know how her mind works. Lara'll save her anger and her grief, her tears and her rage, her guilt, she'll save it all for after I'm gone.

I'm too scared to say anything else. Five years ago I'd be screaming and thrashing and cursing and acting like it's the end of the world. But that was then. I don't feel any different yet. I don't know what it'll feel like and I don't have it in me to ask her to end it. Not yet. We didn't have enough time together. Eighty years wouldn't be enough. Our hands find each other, our fingers squeezing tight. I scream in my head, for Lara's sake.

I finally find the strength to start talking. I talk about us. Boarding school and University, how much fun we'd had, how she always has and always will mean the world to me. An hour passes, and then two and then everything blends together as we reminisce, and as we talk about all the things we never got to do. I push my bag towards her. With my camera and my videos. Me. Us. Her. Lara's voice cracks as she accepts them.

It sneaks up on me, when I start slipping away. Lara's face becomes blurrier and blurrier.

"Lara…" I meet her eyes. "I need you… I need you to…"

She silences me with her lips. They're so warm and mine are so cold. I devour her kiss, her last kiss, before her lips are against my forehead. Then I feel the cold steel of her pistol. "I love you, I wish, I..."

"Thank you." My voice cracks. The barrel of the gun isn't steady. It wavers against my skin, to the same beat of her jaw tensing and untensing. There's a storm in Lara's eyes that I know will never leave her. "Thank you. For saving me. "

I imagine the silence after I'm gone. That'll be the worse I think, when the only time she'll hear my voice will be in her head. I don't want to cry, but the tears streak down my face anyway.

"No Sam. Thank _you_. Thank you for loving me."


End file.
